The small towns of California’s northern Central Valley have an eerie loneliness to them. Cinematically, take Two-Lane Blacktop and fuse it with Neil Young’s Human Highway. Fix that into music and you’d get something like Ghostwriter.

Odd rock & roll from Orland, California, home of the dearly departed Nothing People (and theatre organ legend George Wright), Ghostwriter lurks in the dust-caked shadows of rusted old cars and “obsolete,” solidstate, electronic instruments. The Chrome-meets-psych sounds of the Nothing People is there, with some haunted rockabilly ala Alan Vega, Residents-like wooziness, and something that makes me thing of the words “paranoid closet.” Top quality on its own, but especially excited will be you Nothing People fans who keep bugging me about “their next album.” These outsider/loner rock sounds will be listened to for years to come.